


From the Shadows

by NerdyKat



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 03:21:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6887839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NerdyKat/pseuds/NerdyKat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A girl named Ellie intervenes as the Avengers go to war with each other. Where does she come from? Why is she so loyal to Bucky? It's a secret she tells only those she trusts.</p><p> </p><p>Note: This is an Alternate Universe of both one of my fics, The Sentinel, and Captain America: Civil War.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Shadows

Ellie watched from the shadows. Bucky had insisted that they not hole up in the same spot, so she had been a block away when he had been captured. She felt an ache in her heart that she couldn’t get him through the next few hours, protecting him. He was terrified of going back, but he was more terrified of her being caught. Ellie surveilled the building, easily hacking the security system, only to be forced to watch as Bucky nearly got into HYDRA’s hands again.  
  
As Captain America hauled him from the water and into a warehouse, Ellie knew that it was time to step forward. “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Captain America and the Winter Soldier. Two sides to the same coin,” she said, waltzing in with a confidence she didn’t actually have. She probably looked an interesting picture in her extra-large red hoodie and black pants. Captain America tensed, preparing for a fight. “Relax Cap, I’m here to help.”  
  
“Ellie,” Bucky called, coming out of his state of unconsciousness.  
  
Ellie immediately went to him. “Hey, you okay?” She asked in concern.  
  
“I’ll live,” Bucky ground out.  
  
“You back to normal or is this a FUBAR situation?” Ellie asked quietly, concern she didn’t want others to know how she felt was showing on her face.  
  
“I’m good,” Bucky said with a quick nod. “Hit my head on the way down and broke the conditioning.”  
  
Steve looked awkwardly between the pair of them. “Okay,” he said slowly, clearly not knowing how to process the situation.  
  
“Hey,” Ellie said. She was tall and looked really familiar, but Steve couldn’t place her.  
  
“She’s okay, Steve. Ellie’s gonna help us out,” Bucky said.  
  
“I was just gonna bust him out once the night shift got on duty,” she said, “but I didn’t have time to clock the guard shift, so thanks.”  
  
“Oh,” Steve said. “Are you two…” he wasn’t sure if he should ask.  
  
“God, Steve,” Bucky said, disgusted. “No.”  
  
“I’m…” Ellie said awkwardly, glancing at Bucky, “uh, think of me like his sponsor. Ex-HYDRA Soldiers Support Program.” Steve looked like he was nearly positive that there was no such thing, but he let it go.  
  
“Okay,” came a new voice, “So what’s our next step,” The voice made Ellie jump a mile in the air as leapt away from Bucky and Steve. The man, the Falcon, stared between the three of them. “Hi,” Sam said slowly, eyes locked on Ellie.  
  
“Hey,” Ellie said, giving the man an appreciative once-over.  
  
“You here to fight for the cause?” Sam asked.  
  
“Something like that,” Ellie said, smiling flirtatiously.  
  
Bucky very nearly growled at Ellie, causing Sam to look very nervous and Ellie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. You’re a big, scary assassin, we know,” Ellie said, unimpressed.  
  
“Bucky, do you remember who I am?” Steve asked his old friend.  
  
Bucky calmed down a little. “Your mother’s name was Sarah. You used to stuff newspaper in your shoes,” Bucky intoned. Ellie heard that fact and more on many a late night, staying up with Bucky and talking about his past. She had found him a few days after HYDRA came out of the shadows and SHIELD as the world knew it fell. To say that Bucky had been surprised of her existence was understating things, but Bucky made the adjustment fairly easily, even though he was annoying sometimes with his protectiveness.  
  
Obtaining the beat-up blue Beetle and getting their supplies was easy, though Ellie refused to sit anywhere where a security camera could see her, so she wound up on the floor behind Steve. She refused to sit in the passenger seat to avoid discovery of her existence.  
  
Once they stopped, Ellie knew the plan was to wait for others that Steve had contacted. Bucky whispered things to her in Russian and Ellie whispered them back, trying to reassure him as much as possible. Once Ellie started hearing people speaking, Ellie banged against the trunk. Bucky opened the trunk and helped her out. She groaned and stretched out her back. “Okay, next time you need to share leg space, Cap. I don’t give a shit how compact you think I am,” she complained. “I’m gonna be working knots out of my back for _weeks_.”  
  
She glanced over and saw Clint, Wanda Maximoff, and a new guy all staring at her. “Ellie?” Clint asked. “How do you know… _oh_ ,” Clint said.  
  
Ellie shook her head and rolled her eyes. “He’s not my boyfriend, Clint. I just happen to know him.”  
  
“I’d have expected that Natasha would have called you into all this,” Clint said.  
  
Ellie shook her head. “I wouldn’t sign the Accords if you put a gun to my head. If the Accords went through as planned, the first thing HYDRA would do is set its sights on getting control of that panel.”  
  
“HYDRA doesn’t exist any more,” Steve said. “We destroyed it.”  
  
“Neither does SHIELD, according to your intel,” Ellie said with a smirk.  
  
“SHIELD survived?” The new guy said, eyebrows raised.  
  
“Both groups went underground. Our wayward missing hacker went with SHIELD, apparently,” she said to Clint. “She found her birth parents… and gained powers. That’s part of the reason I’m here.”  
  
Clint cursed. “Anything else you know that we don’t?”  
  
Ellie cocked her head. “I’m not sure if you’re ready for the answer to that question.”  
  
“Ellie,” Bucky said. “Remember what I said about intel.”  
  
Ellie rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry, Clint. Your old boss is still alive,” she said to Clint.  
  
“We know Fury’s alive,” Steve said.  
  
“Not _your_ boss,” Ellie said to Steve. “His.”  
  
Clint froze. “You can’t be talking about Coulson,” Clint said, paling.  
  
“He’s the new Director of SHIELD,” Ellie said.  
  
“Coulson?” Bucky asked.  
  
“He died before the Battle of New York,” Steve said barely containing his anger. “Or at least, that’s what Fury told us.”  
  
“It’s not like he was hiding,” Ellie noted. “He was running around the Hub more than once before and during HYDRA’s coming out party. Then there was the dozen other missions that he was running in the last year. Not to mention the data blast with his name plastered all over it when he went missing for a couple days a couple years ago.”  
  
“Why wouldn’t he tell us?” Clint asked softly.  
  
Ellie shrugged. “I honestly have no idea,” she said. “You’ll have to ask him after we deal with the other HYDRA agents. If Zemo plans to free them... it wouldn’t be good.”  
  
“So you’re a new player,” the new guy said. “I’m Scott, also known as Ant-Man.”  
  
Ellie took the hand that Scott offered and shook it. “I’m Ellie, but I’m not a new player. I’ve been around… a long time. Some people know me as the Sentinel.”  
  
Wanda snorted. “The Sentinel is a myth. A fairy-tale parents tell their children in Sokovia,” the young woman said in disbelief. Ellie regarded Wanda carefully. Clint had brought the young woman around quite a few times, but Wanda had only known Ellie by her given name and knew little of her past.  
  
“She isn’t,” Clint confirmed, looks being exchanged between the three of them. “Though she tends to stick to the third-world and not issues on a global scale. I still can’t figure out how you know Barnes.”  
  
Ellie looked down, unable to meet Clint’s eyes. “What if I told you my program was HYDRA?” Ellie asked quietly. Another secret she had kept from those closest to her.  
  
Clint stiffened. “I thought it was a corrupted branch of the CIA that you shut down.” His body nearly screaming for answers from her.  
  
Ellie frowned, “I think what just happened is proof that HYDRA can get into anywhere, even the UN. It was run by the CIA, but HYDRA funded it.” She could tell Bucky was getting angry. The night she had told him her story, he had put a chair through a wall. “But where I come from is neither here nor there. The point is that I’m here to help. The other Winter Soldiers helped train me. I know _exactly_ what we’re up against. This isn’t going to be an easy mission.”  
  
There was a heaviness in the air. A weight had been added. “Well, as long as someone does,” Scott said.  
  
The airport alarm went off. “They know we’re here. Does everyone know the plan?”  
  
Steve wanted to go in first and serve as a decoy, then they were all going to run for the StarkJet. It seemed like a really dumb plan to Ellie, but she wasn’t going to make a comment. Apart from Clint and Wanda, she didn’t really know these people, despite her ties to Bucky. Mentally, though, she made alternate escape plans for them in case Steve’s plan didn’t go through.  
  
Ellie refused to not be near Bucky, so she, Sam, and Bucky went together. As always, she hid in the shadows, suspicious that the plan would fail. She watched Steve come out to distract his former teammates, watched as some punk stole the shield, then heard over the coms that they had been spotted, as had Clint and Wanda.  
  
An over-enthusiastic Spiderman came crashing through the windows and started shooting a web-like material all over the place. He was about to take out her father when Ellie made a calculated risk and stepped forward. “HEY! Bug boy!” she exclaimed.  
  
It drew his attention and Ellie fried his web-shooters in an instant. Tony Stark upgrading his tech only made things easier for her to shut down. “Woah, civilian,” Spiderman said over-dramatically. “These are dangerous criminals.” He aimed his webshooters at her and faltered, clearly surprised when they didn’t work.  
  
“Hey, no fair!” Spiderman said.  
  
Ellie stared at him, unimpressed. “What are you, twelve?”  
  
Spiderman paused. “... no.”  
  
“Wait,” Ellie said. “How old are you? If you lie to me, I’ll know.”  
  
“... Fifteen.” Spiderman said sullenly. “But my birthday’s in two months.”  
  
“What the hell are you doing here, kid. Where are you parents?”

  
“They’re dead,” Spiderman said quietly. “I live with my - with my Aunt.”  
  
“Uh huh,” Ellie said in an unconvinced tone, giving Sam and Bucky time to work their way out of the webbing. She pointed towards the exit. “You’re a kid. You shouldn’t be here. Go home.”  
  
“Oh please, you can’t be more than seventeen,” the kid retorted.  
  
“Try forty, kid. Go home,” she said. She turned to say something to Sam and Bucky when Spiderman attacked her. Ellie quickly pinned him. “Are you serious kid? Telling Captain America that he’s wrong? Did you do any of your own research about what all this is about or did you just take what Stark said as gospel? Do you realize that there’s no reset button on this life. Actions here have consequences. _Serious_ consequences. Let me tell you something, death is not the worst thing that can happen to you in this world.”  
  
“Ellie!” Bucky called. They had to move,  
  
“Stay out of the fight kid,” Ellie begged. “Please.”  
  
It was the work of a few moments that they were hopping down, onto the tarmac to help Cap. Ellie came face-to-face with Stark himself. “Another new person?” Stark scoffed. “Where does Capsical find these people? What’s your name?” He asked taking a swing at her.  
  
Ellie ducked and shut down the propulsion system in the suit. “My first name is Bite, my last name is Me.” Ellie said with an angry smile.  
  
“That’s witty.” Stark said dryly. “Really witty. What the hell’d you do to my suit.”  
  
Ellie cocked her head and smiled again as she kicked Stark’s legs from under him. “Spoilers,” Ellie said.  
  
Stark restarted the propulsion system and launched himself at her. She dived away and he missed. “What’s with the red hoodie?” Stark asked. “Red’s my thing.”  
  
“Careful,” Ellie said, shutting down the suit entirely. “you weren’t the first superhero in town to wear red, just the first to come out of the closet. Unless you’ve been saving the world for longer than I have, I got dibs on the red. Now if you excuse me, I’ve both got bigger fish to fry.” Stark would reset his suit soon, and Ellie knew someone else could handle Stark and his pal with ease. Her skills were required for someone much more powerful.  
  
Ellie approached her opponent with some fear as she turned to fight him. Clint had suggested she could go up against Vision but she was uncertain if she would survive the encounter. Bucky. She was doing this for Bucky. She concentrated on his code and nearly choked on how overwhelming it was. Vision immediately caught on to what she was doing.  
  
“I am unsure of how you gained the power to manipulate technology, but it will not work,” Vision said. “The Mind Stone prevents such a thing.” He took a swing at her and she let her HYDRA training take over as she ducked and countered. Time passed, though Ellie was largely unaware of how much time. VISION and Ellie fought across the the tarmac, both in the mental battle of wills - technopath versus Mind Stone, and physically.  
  
Suddenly, Bucky was beside her, fighting with her. “We have to go,” Bucky shouted.  
  
Ellie shook her head. “Go without me. I won’t be able to… I can’t hold out much longer.” She was losing the fight with Vision. She was nearly blind from the migraine that Vision’s data was causing, but she refused to give up the fight. She knew soon the data would overwhelm her.  
  
“I can’t leave you,” Bucky said in anguish.  
  
“You can and you will,” Ellie cried angrily, stumbling slightly. “Go,” she said, her stomach rolling. “You can always come back for me. I’ll be okay.”  
  
“I love you,” Bucky said softly.  
  
“Go,” Ellie yelled back. There were tears in her eyes as her body seemed to gain renewed vigor in defending her father.  
  
“I’ll stay with her,” Clint shouted from somewhere, not far away.  
  
She was completely blinded by the data now, fighting VISION more on instinct and drive than anything. She didn’t stop until she heard the Quinjet fly off and she collapsed to the ground. Then the darkness took her.

 

\----------

 

When she awoke again, she was restrained to a medical bed, a tube down her throat. She fought against the tube and noticed the cuffs were vibranium. Unhackable and too strong for her to break out of.  
  
Panic set in. Were they going to experiment on her? Would they want to test her abilities? Someone came by and put in a drug into her IV port. She felt the panic subsiding and they removed the tube.  
  
An official looking man stood in front of her as they raised her bed halfway to sitting. “We weren’t able to identify you with our databases,” the man said. “Hundreds of countries, boatloads of information at our fingertips and we found nothing but a handful of images on security cameras.” Ellie said nothing. “Most who were at the airport think that you’re dating The Winter Soldier. Are you?”  
  
“I’ve been trained to withstand the worst torture that HYDRA could ever dole out. What makes you think I’m going to answer your questions?” Ellie asked, her voice hoarse and weak. Vision had done a number on her. She knew she’d need to rest a few days before she could use her power.  
  
“Eventually, I believe that you will learn that the Accords are the only way to do things,” the man said. “If you sign them now…”  
  
“You don’t know what you did creating those,” Ellie said. “The Accords make the world more vulnerable to HYDRA than ever.”  
  
“There has to be checks and balances to people who have powers,” the man said calmly. “People have died.”  
  
“More would have if no one had stepped up and done something,” Ellie croaked. “It’s a choice that we make to save the world.”  
  
The man stared at her curiously. “I feel there is a great deal to learn about you,” he said. He turned to the guard. “Return her to her cell. She’s well enough to heal there.”  
  
Ellie was placed in a small cell with few amenities in it, only a bed, toilet, and sink. Her hands were bound and a control collar was placed around her neck More than she’d had in prisons in her past. Her cell door was not electronic, but had a multi-key locking mechanism. The door was glass, so she could see out, but there was no way she could break out of her cell without careful planning. She couldn’t see any data, which caused her to panic. Even with the others, without their gear it was really just her and Wanda who could fight their way out, and that was only if they could get their collars off. Between talking to the suit and being moved, Ellie was already too tired to answer Clint’s worried calls from across the way.  
  
When she awoke again, she heard Tony Stark talking to Sam in his cell next to hers. She heard Stark say that he now received evidence that Bucky hadn’t been the person to bomb the UN. Ellie got up and stumbled sideways. She leaned against the wall as Tony regarded her carefully. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” he said to her.  
  
“Get away from her Stark!” Clint roared.  
  
“Fuck you,” Ellie spat, rage filling her still-sore body as Stark raised his eyebrows at Clint’s reaction. She still had an aura from her migraine, but the pain had subsided enough that she no longer felt like she was going to pass out.  
  
Tony looked regretfully at her. “Who _are_ you? Why are you so significant to Barnes and Barton?”  
  
Ellie raised her eyebrows at him. “You can’t possibly understand what he means to me. What we’d do for each other.”  
  
“I’m pretty smart. I understand a lot,” Tony said.  
  
“You brought a fifteen-year-old into a situation where he easily could have been accidentally killed or worse,” Ellie said, sagging against the wall. “You know who trained child soldiers? HYDRA.” She panted heavily. “I should know. I was one of them.”  
  
Tony’s eyes flew open, “You were a child soldier for HYDRA?” Ellie nodded, groaning. Tony looked at her with concern as she sagged further down the wall. “Why aren’t you in medical?” he asked.  
  
Ellie ignored his question. “This is only the first stage. Do you honestly think they’ll keep us like this? You allow them much more ground, you better prepare for the war of your lifetime, because you just created a holocaust. The way the Accords are set up… they can go after any of us for any reason. They can kill us on a whim. I hope that someday you’ll come to realize that, but I’m fairly sure I’ll be dead by then.”  
  
She remained standing until Tony finally left, then collapsed to the ground. “Ellie?” Clint asked. He was standing against the bars of his cell. “You okay?”  
  
Ellie closed her eyes and took a couple deep breaths. “I’ll be fine,” she said softly. She looked up and saw all the others staring at her.  
  
“She’s not going to tell us who she is, is she?” Sam asked.  
  
Clint shook his head. “Ellie’s weird about secrets like that. She doesn’t have many but the few that she has….” realization struck Clint as his eyes went wide and he took a step back. “No…” Clint breathed.  
  
Ellie nodded grimly. “Yes,” she said.  
  
“God… no wonder,” Clint said, not looking at the cameras. He knew they were there. Knew he couldn’t directly talk about what he knew. The others would have to be left in the dark for now.  
  
Luckily, they didn’t have to wait long to be rescued. Steve came back the next day with Laura and Natasha.  
  
The electronic doors quietly disengaged and a moment later, Steve, Laura, and Natasha came in as the others exited their cells. Steve went over to Ellie’s cell and pulled it open with a super soldier strength tug.  
  
Natasha led Scott and Sam towards the plane, while Laura Barton, not far behind Steve and made a beeline for Wanda’s cell with the key to the young woman’s control collar. Wanda did not cry, but she did not resist the hugs that Laura insisted on giving the woman.  
  
Clint made a beeline for Ellie, who hadn’t moved from where she collapsed after Stark’s visit, and stroked her cheek. “Laura! We need the key over here!” he shouted. Clint started feeling her forehead and her pulse. Ellie made a grunt of dissatisfaction at the attention, but was forced to admit that taking on Vision was a Bad Idea.  
  
Laura came over and gasped. “Ellie, you’re as white as a sheet! What the hell did you do to yourself?”  
  
“Took on Vision,” Ellie groaned. “Not my best plan.” Laura undid Ellie’s collar and Clint helped her up. Ellie groaned loudly as her body protested. Laura and Clint exchanged a concerned look.  
  
“Time to go,” Steve said.  Ellie looked at him and simply _knew_ that he knew.  
  
Ellie stumbled a few steps before nearly falling over, pale-faced. Steve caught her and picked her up despite Clint’s protests. “Bucky told me everything,” he said quietly. “I’m so sorry.”  
  
As they entered the Quinjet and Steve laid Ellie down on a cot next to Bucky’s unconscious body, she saw that his vibranium arm had been ripped off. She gave a cry of anguish and squeezed his human hand as Clint took the pilot’s seat and took off.  
  
“I think it is high time that you come clean. Who are you?” asked an accented voice, different from Scott’s, Clint’s, or Sam’s. Ellie glanced up and saw T’Challa standing there.  
  
She tensed as Steve held up a hand. “He learned the truth about who really killed his father,” Steve said. “He’s offering us asylum.”  
  
“As long as you tell me who you are,” T’Challa said cooly.  
  
Ellie sat up as best she could. Natasha helped her the rest of the way. “My answer’s more complicated than you think. Officially, I don’t exist. Officially I’m a HYDRA experiment that failed in the late 80s and was scrapped. Officially, I just have a serial number, ‘LE41977E’. That’s how I named myself. I’m L.E., a living experiment.”  
  
Those not familiar with Ellie’s story looked horrified by this. Wanda gained the same empathetic look she had gained when she was first told. They had found a lot of common ground in the mutually experienced horrors at the hands of HYDRA. Scott looked gray, like he was going to be sick. Sam and Steve both looked rather enraged at the thought.  
  
“What are your ties to Barnes then,” T’Challa asked. “Did you meet him in HYDRA?”  
  
“Once,” Ellie said, nodding. “But it broke his programming, so I was never allowed near him again. You see, I reminded him of his little sister. Apparently I look a good deal like her, being Bucky’s biological daughter.”  
  
The only sound that could be heard was the roar of the Quinjet’s engines. Scott, Wanda, T’Challa, and Sam all gaped at her. Laura came over and hugged her tearfully. Laura and Clint both knew how long Ellie had searched for her father. Clint had rescued her, back during his mercenary days, and Laura had helped nurse her back to health.  
  
Sam was the first to recover. “His daughter,” he said slowly.  
  
Ellie nodded. “I was given technopathic abilities,” Ellie said with a fond smile. “Hard to control, but after thirty-plus years, I’ve gotten pretty good at it.” Wanda was looking at her with an odd look on her face.  
  
“Which is why you took on Vision at the airport,” Scott said. “No wonder you’re wiped out. He’s supposed to be practically unbeatable with the mind stone.”  
  
“I could only hold him off for a limited time.” Ellie said, her body aching and eyelids drooping. “I probably should have stopped sooner but… nothing is more important to me than... freeing my father from further imprisonment. Seventy years is long enough.” Everyone, save for Steve and Clint (who had set the Quinjet on autopilot after he placed the camouflage on), continued to stare at her in shock.  
  
“I understand your loyalty,” T’Challa said quietly, the next to recover. “Were I in the same position. I believe I would do the same.”  
  
“So…” Scott said. “What now?”  
  
“Now? Now we go get my other daughter,” Laura said with finality. “I’m not living in Wakanda without her. When I dropped off Lila and Cooper in Wakanda, they made me promise that I'd get Auntie Natasha, Ellie, and Skye home safe."


End file.
